


Replacing a God

by butterfly_wings



Series: The Life Cycle of a God [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Kageyama is winter, M/M, Off-screen Relationship(s), also the death is all off-screen, and iwaoisuga used to be death and the seasons but they died :(, and kyoutani is death!, for iwaoisuga they're mentioned the whole time, hinata is summer, idk how else to tag this tbh, no beta we die like daichi, reincarnation? sort of, tsukishima is the moon, yachi is spring, yahaba is the god of stories, yamaguchi is the mountain god
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-25
Updated: 2020-09-25
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:14:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26648857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/butterfly_wings/pseuds/butterfly_wings
Summary: Kageyama is the new Winter (he can't control his powers).Yachi is the new Spring (she can't feel her powers).Kyoutani is the new Death (if he keeps working, it'll be like Iwaizumi never left).or, three gods struggle to accept their new roles (gods weren't supposed to die).For Haikyuu! Week 2020, day one: seasons!
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou/Kageyama Tobio, Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru/Sugawara Koushi, Kyoutani Kentarou/Yahaba Shigeru, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Tsukishima Kei/Yachi Hitoka/Yamaguchi Tadashi
Series: The Life Cycle of a God [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1945327
Comments: 4
Kudos: 56
Collections: Haikyuu!! Fics, Tumblr Haikyuu!! Week 2020





	Replacing a God

**Author's Note:**

> huge shout-out to Kat and Annabella for letting me bounce ideas off of them. you two are amazing and i love you <3

“The last Winter froze his lovers,” Kageyama whispers. He touches Hinata’s cheek. It’s warm under his hands, and Hinata inevitably leans into his touch.

“I can’t make the same mistake,” he finishes, drawing away. “I can’t.”

Hinata snatches his frozen hands and presses them to his chest. “You won’t freeze me, Kageyama,” he hisses. “Because I will melt right through it.”

Everyone knows how the last god of Winter froze his lovers, knows how Spring succumbed to his cold touch, knows how Death himself gave up living for Winter. The past Winter was evil, they whisper. Cruel, unfeeling. A monster.

Kyoutani thinks it’s all bullshit. He knew Spring, and he knew Winter, but most importantly, he knew Death.

Death–or Iwaizumi Hajime, as he was known amongst the gods–would never have succumbed to Winter. No one bossed Iwaizumi around. If anything, Winter was the one who succumbed to Death.

Kyoutani scowls at the new Winter, the replacement, the one born of frost and snowflakes before he grew up to take over Oikawa’s role as Winter.

“You can’t honestly think Winter froze Spring,” he snaps, the air growing colder around him. That’s the danger of hanging around Kageyama these days. “Winter was stupid, but he wasn’t cruel.”

Kageyama looks at his hands. There’s frost creeping up his fingers, and his skin is taking on a blue tint. “Hinata’s so much warmer than me,” he says in lieu of a response.

Kyoutani scoffs. “Of course he is. He’s Summer.” He has no idea what Kageyama is trying to say.

Kageyama just stares at his hands. Snow dances between his fingers.

“If anyone can melt your coldness, it’s Summer,” Kyoutani says. Frustration bubbles up in his throat. In front of him, Kageyama’s hands start frosting over. They’ve been doing that a lot lately too. “Summer is warmer, far warmer than Spring ever was. You won’t hurt him.”

The frost grows thicker, colder, encasing Kageyama’s hands in white. “What if he can’t dispel it?”

What a stupid question. “What if he can?”

You will not freeze, Kageyama, he thinks.

He doesn’t think he could bear it if another god died.

No one knows what happened, of course. One moment, Spring was fine; the next, Winter was screaming for Iwaizumi as Spring lay cold in his arms. That’s all they were able to get out of Oikawa, at least. No one else was there; no one else knew what caused it.

Some say that Death was jealous that Winter took on another lover. They whisper that Death took Spring with pleasure; that he set Winter to take the fall in a fit of jealousy.

Kageyama hates it when they blame Iwaizumi for Spring’s death. He likes it better when they blame Oikawa. He prefers it when they blame Winter for freezing him; would rather have them be mistrustful of Oikawa and Winter instead of Iwaizumi and Death (it makes him feel better about losing control all the time).

He knows Iwaizumi would rather cut out his own heart than lose Spring or Winter. He was there when Iwaizumi relinquished his powers to Kyoutani. He witnessed the grief and pain that wracked Iwaizumi over the loss of both Spring and Winter.

But he was not there when Oikawa gave up his powers (it’s easier to blame what you cannot see).

No, Kageyama had been watching Hinata weave sunlight into a crown when the full force of snow and frost and cold and winter had entered into him. His limbs grew cold; his breath had crystallized in the air; his powers felt stronger, wilder, uncontrollable somehow.

He had run away from Hinata, snowflakes dancing around his head, his tears freezing as they fell from his eyes before they clattered on the floor. Oikawa was dead; Kageyama was the new Winter, and he was freezing from the inside out. His hands wouldn’t stop shaking; the ice wouldn’t stop creeping over his limbs.

Kyoutani says, “You can’t honestly think Winter froze Spring. Winter was stupid, but he wasn’t cruel.” His harsh voice draws Kageyama from his thoughts, bringing him back to the present.

Kageyama stares down at his hands. As usual, there’s a dusting of snow on his skin. These days, ice and frost are just as much a part of his body as his limbs. “Hinata’s so much warmer than me,” he whispers.

But what if he’s not warm enough, he thinks. What if even the heat of Summer cannot undo the damage that Winter’s cold can do?

“Of course he is. He’s Summer,” Kyoutani practically growls. Underneath that: he’s your opposite. “If anyone can melt your coldness, it’s Summer,” Kyoutani continues. Kageyama doesn’t look at him as he talks, just stares at his hands. They’re so cold all the time; it feels as if he’s been carved from ice. Frost gathers on his fingertips, and he knows that he needs to calm down, to get the uncontrollable urge to freeze into something manageable before he loses Hinata the same way Oikawa lost Suga.

“Summer is warmer, far warmer than Spring ever was.” Kyoutani is staring at his hands, taking in the ice encasing his fingers. The ice keeps growing. Kyoutani must be freezing.

“What if he can’t dispel it?” Kageyama is an ice block. Soon, he will become a sculpture: a block of frozen, pure, unmovable ice.

“What if he can?” Kyoutani’s voice is gruff, low, angry. He sounds irritated, but Kageyama knows he’s not.

What he’s actually saying is: Have more faith in him. You will not freeze.

Kageyama looks at his hands. He can no longer see his fingers. It’s all ice.

Spring sits on a mountaintop and faces the moon.

“What do I do?” she asks, tears gathering in her eyes. It feels like she’s been crying a lot these days. “Suga never prepared me for this.”

The moon does not respond (although he is busy tonight).

But the mountain does.

“Yachi.” The mountain god appears, holding out his hands to her. “You can do this. You were born of sunlight and flowers and rain, and you can carry on Spring’s duties.”

Yachi cries, “Kageyama says that he can no longer control the frost or the ice in the way he used to. Hinata says that Kageyama’s tears freeze when they leave his eyes.” She wipes her eyes. “If he cannot control a season, then how can I?”

Yamaguchi takes her hands. “It’s only summer,” he reminds her. “You have time before you need to be Spring in full.”

Yachi says, “I was just the dew. I was barely a god. Now I’m an entire season.”

“You will learn,” Yamaguchi tells her, and tugs her into a hug. The moon shines down on them. “I promise.”

“I can’t ask Yachi to do this,” Kageyama says. Hinata holds Kageyama’s hands, encased in ice as they are, and sends in slow tendrils of warmth. Despite his best attempts to be gentle with the warmth, the ice block sizzles underneath Hinata’s hands.

“What if I froze her?” Kageyama finishes.

What he doesn’t say: what if Yachi can’t do it, because she was not warm in the Suga was, or cold in the way Kageyama and Oikawa were?

What he means: what if Yachi never properly grows into Spring?

And worst of all, the lingering question in the air: why can’t the former dew goddess become the fourth season?

Hinata knows what Kageyama means by now. He’s spent decades learning how to read the little frost spirit, although Kageyama has become so much more than that.

“You know Oikawa didn’t purposely freeze Suga,” Hinata tells him, ignoring the unspoken fears. He doesn’t want to deal with that, but he’s already decided that if Yachi cannot do it, he and Kageyama will have to form some amalgamation of spring when the time comes. Daichi would be able to help, too. But that doesn’t matter now: he has a god to defrost. Underneath his fingers, the ice grows slippery, slick with water as it begins to melt. This isn’t the first time he’s had to help melt Kageyama since Oikawa’s death. He doubts that it will be the last.

“What if it was an accident?” Kageyama asks. “If I can’t control it…what if he couldn’t, either?” His breath comes out in thick white clouds. He’s freezing again, and Hinata is still trying to melt his hands. The ice block neither grows nor shrinks. Instead, it is caught between intense heat and intense cold.

Hinata says, “You’re not used to being Winter. Before this, you were just the frost. Now, you’ve got more power than you ever dreamed of.”

Kageyama scowls. “You idiot,” he hisses, and there’s an audible crack as snow starts falling around him. “That doesn’t change the fact that I can’t control any of this.”

Hinata breathes warmth around Kageyama, trying to keep the way his heart stutters every time Kageyama gets even colder under control. “I could have melted you when you were no more than frost,” he snaps, and channels as much heat as he possibly can onto Kageyama’s ice block of a hand. To his relief, it starts melting once more, steaming from his touch. “And you never did. So now, trust that I won’t freeze because of you.”

He presses heat into Kageyama’s hands, and says, “We’re stronger than that, Kageyama. Tobio.”

Tears start rolling down Kageyama’s cheeks, but they freeze onto his face. Hinata smiles sadly and gently brushes them away, doing his best not to burn Kageyama as he does so.

Yachi has not left the mountain. “I cannot control any of it,” she cries. She has not felt the warmth settle into her in the way Kageyama felt the cold settle into him. She cannot feel the rain beneath her skin, cannot sense the promises of new life no matter how desperately she reaches out. All she knows is that she can still gather the dew. “I will never learn. We have lost Spring for good.”

The moon watches her struggle, casting his silver light over her tears.

“You will get there,” he says softly. “I know you will.” 

The mountain holds her hands when she digs her fingernails into her palms, and uncurls her fingers when she makes her palms bleed.

“You will get there,” Yamaguchi promises, and he cleans her hands as Tsukishima descends from the sky, bathing them in moonlight so that they may see her progress, or lack thereof.

"You will get there,” Tsukishima repeats, weaving silver moonlight into a crown for Yachi’s head. “We have time. It is barely fall.”

Yachi cries. Tsukishima places the crown on her head and strokes her hair as she sobs.

“Wear the moonlight until your flowers grow in,” he says softly. “It will illuminate your progress in the night.” 

Yahaba is the god of stories. His realm is nebulous, a concept, something looser than fate but more powerful than memory. He is both real and not; his stories are both falsehoods and truths. He knows more than he should, yet he cannot see the ends in the way Fate can. He is a god; more importantly, he is a storyteller.

This story is one with gods he knows, gods he considers friends. Yahaba thinks that he might be more invested in this particular story than he should be.

Kyoutani gathers souls like it will kill him if he doesn’t. Yahaba watches the newly christened god of death scour the earth, bringing lost souls to his realm without hesitation.

“Don’t you get tired?” he asks him.

Kyoutani doesn’t even look up, just cradles the crying soul of a child in his arms to comfort it. “I have to keep this place running until Iwaizumi gets back,” he says. “That’s my job.”

Yahaba frowns. “But you are new to this, aren’t you?”

Kyoutani rocks the soul in his arms. “Unlike Kageyama and Yachi, I was already working with Death. A guardian of Death, I suppose. He taught me what to do.”

It’s as if he has given up. Yahaba watches as Kyoutani hands the child to its grandmother and instructs the pair on where they should go next, before turning to guide the next souls. Kyoutani focuses only on keeping Death’s realm running. It’s as if Iwaizumi never disappeared.

Stories can look Death in the eye and say, “This is not the end.” Yahaba watches as Kyoutani throws himself into being Death, forcing himself to fulfill Iwaizumi’s duties to the best of his abilities. And so he makes a decision.

“The story isn’t over yet,” Yahaba promises him. This much, Yahaba knows. There is more for Oikawa and Iwaizumi and Suga, the three gods who wrote a love story that could surely span a century, an eternity, immortality, even, if it was told properly.

At that, Kyoutani finally raises his head and looks at him.

“It’s not?”

He sounds breathless, Yahaba thinks. Like he barely dared to hope.

“I decide when the story’s over,” Yahaba declares, and he knows that his next words will challenge the heavens and force Fate’s hand. He lifts his head anyways and forces himself to speak. “And it’s not finished yet.” 

Kyoutani might not be able to feel it, but Yahaba can. He feels the way the heavens shudder at his words; feels the way Fate picks up her knitting once more; feels the way the story opens up and starts the next chapter.

Something has shifted. He just hopes that whatever he did is enough to give the seasons a chance to try again. 

“I promise,” he says, and he takes Kyoutani’s hands. “It’s not over.”

“Thank you,” Kyoutani whispers, and when Yahaba looks at him, he’s surprised to see tears welling in Death’s eyes.

Kageyama wakes up to the sight of fresh snowfall covering his realm.

Did he do all of this in his sleep?

He looks at himself in the mirror and exhales shakily. His breath falls from his lips in clouds of white. Ice lines his skin, painting white lines in his palms and covering his joints. His lips are no longer red, but a pale blue. His lashes are frosted over and there’s cold ice trails on his cheeks.

He must have cried in his sleep, again.

He wonders if the winter will freeze him from the inside out instead. Maybe Oikawa was always destined to die. Maybe Suga was collateral damage. Maybe Iwaizumi should have seen it coming. Maybe this is the slow, inevitable death of winter. Maybe this is the end of him, the end of the gods, the end of…everything.

As if he could sense Kageyama growing existentialist and depressed once again, Hinata barrels into his realm, all sunshine and warmth and cheer. “Kageyama,” he calls out. “You really did a number tonight. There’s snow everywhere here.”

Kageyama touches his mirror. To his surprise, the glass does not shatter from the cold snapping under his fingers. 

He pokes it. The mirror is solid, cold, but most importantly, it is still. Frost does not creep over it. Instead, it remains cold, stiff, unmoving, unchanging.

Something has changed. Kageyama reaches into himself and feels the cold magic of being winter underneath him. His body might be frozen, but his soul…his soul is not.

“Hinata,” he says, and Hinata skids to a stop. Snow is already beginning to melt under his feet. Steam rises around him as the god of summer tilts his head and waits for Kageyama to figure out his thoughts.

“Is…is this how it feels?” Kageyama asks.

Hinata blinks, confusion written on his face. “How what feels?”

Kageyama presses his fingers, coated in ice as they are, to his chest.

"Being a season,” Kageyama whispers.

Hinata’s eyes widen before he’s screaming and tackling Kageyama, warm against the frozen expanse of Kageyama. Kageyama yelps as Hinata shoves them both into the snow, sending the flakes flying around them.

“Yamayama!! I told you that you would learn!” Hinata beams down at him, and Kageyama smiles.

“Yeah. You did.”

“You had nothing to be worried about,” Hinata says. “I knew you could control it.”

He reaches down and caresses Kageyama’s face, trailing warm fingertips over the frozen tear tracks. “Let’s tell Yachi the good news. Maybe we can help her, too.”

Yachi wakes up to Yamaguchi and Tsukishima sleeping next to her. She sighs and studies them, the way Tsukishima’s lashes are faint against his skin and the way Yamaguchi’s arms wrap around Tsukishima. There are a few flowers tangled in Yamaguchi’s hair, which is odd, because it’s fall and the flowers should be dying.

Unless.

There’s no way.

Her hands shake as Yachi reaches out and touches Yamaguchi’s hair. Her fingers tremble against the flower.

Another sprouts up.

Yachi closes her eyes and breathes.

She can feel the promises of new life, of rebirth, just under her fingertips. It’s as if she’s complete, as if a piece she hadn’t known she was missing has been returned to her. Tears spring into her eyes, and Yachi reaches out to wake the gods sleeping beside her.

“Yamaguchi, Tsukishima, wake up,” Yachi cries, her voice breaking once more. “Wake up, wake up.”

Tsukishima wakes first, rubbing his eyes and glaring at her. “What is it?” he demands. “What is…” He trails off, eyes widening comically.

“Yachi, your hair,” he breathes out. “It’s…”

“Huh?” Yachi asks. “What about it?”

“You have flowers,” Tsukishima tells her.

Yachi reaches up, hands still shaking, to touch the top of her head. What greets her fingertips is not the softness of her hair, but rather, the silky smooth petals and tangled vines of a flower crown.

“Does…does this mean I…”

“I knew you could,” Tsukishima blurts out, and suddenly he’s tugging her into a hug. "I knew you could." 

“Yachi,” Hinata says. Behind him, Kageyama stands, half god, half ice sculpture, mostly frozen. “You can thaw Kageyama now.”

“Yes,” Yachi replies. Her voice does not waver, this time.

“Then it’s your turn to try it,” Hinata declares. He shoves Kageyama in front of him. “I might be Summer, but you’re Spring. You’re supposed to melt him, not me.”

“I’ll do my best,” Yachi says.

“I don’t want to freeze you,” Kageyama says.

“I’ll stop if it gets too much,” Hinata reminds them. “But I promise that it’s going to be fine.”

Yachi reaches out to the half-frozen Kageyama and trails her fingers down the ribbons of frost that decorate his skin.

Unlike the searing heat of Hinata’s touch, Yachi’s warmth is gentle, comforting. Kageyama’s skin does not sizzle; the ice does not steam as it rises off his body. Instead, it is a gentle defrosting process, the way Spring delicately thaws Winter to make way for Summer. 

Kageyama smiles at Yachi. Yachi smiles back.

Kyoutani studies Kageyama and Yachi. The two seasons seem like they’re finally confident in their roles. Kageyama’s breath doesn’t freeze as it leaves his lips. Yachi’s skin glows with a gentle warmth, and there are flowers entwined in her golden hair.

“What do you want?” he demands.

“I think we should see if we can save Suga,” Kageyama says.

Kyoutani looks at the souls scattered throughout his realm. “Rebirth,” he guesses. “You’re here to make them try again.”

“As mortals,” Yachi tells him.

Kyoutani thinks of Yahaba telling him that the story wasn’t over. He guesses that this is what the god meant, even if Yahaba himself would be unable to confirm or deny that thought.

“Okay,” he says. “But it’s not just Suga we’re saving. We’re freeing Oikawa from blame and bringing Iwaizumi back, too. We’re saving them all.”

“Of course,” Kageyama replies. “It’s what they would want. It’s what caused them to fall in the first place.”

Kyoutani feels his mouth stretch into a grin for the first time since Iwaizumi handed him the mantle of Death.

“Let’s do this,” he says.

**Author's Note:**

> me: iwaoisuga is an underrated threesome  
> me: write about them but they're dead and don't actually show up >:)
> 
> so this fic is inspired by this one yuuri on ice fic that i read years ago!! unfortunately for all of you, i didn't fucking bookmark it, and i have no fucking idea what it was called or who wrote it, and i even went through all 168 pages of my ao3 read history (multiple times!!) to find it and it wasn't there either, so either i'm a literal clown or it's been deleted. anyways, the fic in question is six chapters long; i think around 10K words (maybe a little more); and the premise was victor was winter and he accidentally froze yuuri, who was spring, and he had one day to make yuuri fall in love with him or lose him forever. if that rings a bell to any of u, pls let me know, bc i would like to find the fic again. 
> 
> i do have more plans for this au! gotta resolve the whole iwaoisuga being dead thing. i'm sure they'll be fine. kageyama, yachi, and kyoutani are doing a great job in their absence though :,) 
> 
> uhhh further notes: daichi is fall. when i first wrote this, i didn't have anyone in mind for fall, so that's why he barely makes an appearance :,( daichi im sorry you deserve better; i promise you'll show up in future works 
> 
> ok welp that's it. thank u for reading this!! congrats on making it to the end!! feel free to leave a comment/kudos on ur way out!! and happy haikyuu week everyone!!
> 
> (oh! and come yell at me on [tumblr](https://conartisthaiji.tumblr.com/)!!)


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